


will i see your face (when i close my eyes)

by notcaycepollard



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Pining, post-season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-14 15:14:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7176992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notcaycepollard/pseuds/notcaycepollard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Can I-” he asks, and touches the scarf over his eyes. Daisy grabs him by both wrists, stilling the movement.</p><p>“No,” she tells him, “no, that stays on.”</p><p>“I don’t- please, can’t I see you?”</p><p>“You said you just wanted to talk, Phil,” Daisy says, and it’s gentle but there’s steel inside it. It’s the same tone of voice she’d used when she told him she was leaving. <em>Don’t try and stop me. I’m no good here. I have to go, Coulson, you know that.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	will i see your face (when i close my eyes)

When Daisy shows up, she catches him by surprise before he even gets a glimpse.

“Don't turn around,” she says, the cold barrel of a gun pressed to the nape of his neck, and all Coulson can do at first is breathe into the sound of her voice. “Don't turn around. Lower your icer, and hand it to me. Slowly.”

“I've been looking for you for so long,” he whispers, “god, Daisy, I-” and she makes an impatient noise until he's pressing the icer into her hand, still _not looking_.

“You should leave,” she tells him, “you should stop looking, you _know_ I'm not coming back,” and Coulson has to laugh even though it hurts like a punch, because since when has knowing anything ever stopped him from searching?

“Can't we just- I just want to talk to you,” he says to the air, the blank space in front of him, and from over his shoulder, Daisy hums a little.

“Not here,” she says, “not out in the open, if we talk we do it on my terms,” and Coulson nods, frantic, because it's still the best offer he's had in months. “I'll have to take you to a base,” she continues, “that means you've got to play along. Can you do that, Phil?”

He can do anything. _Would_ do anything, if it means Daisy will stay for just a minute longer.

She laughs again like she knows how desperate he is, clicks her tongue against her teeth.

“Wearing a tie, Phil?”

He's not. He shakes his head, and hears a noise that he identifies, immediately, as _Daisy making fun of him._ He didn't know how much he missed that noise.

“Getting sloppy,” she chides him, “all this casual dress. I miss the suits, Coulson, maybe you'd get better results if you dressed sharp. Okay, I'm gonna- don't do anything reckless, okay? Close your eyes. I'm trusting you here.” The gun drops away from the back of his neck, and there's the noise of Daisy fumbling with fabric, and then she's sliding something soft over his eyes. A scarf, maybe? It feels like silk. It smells like Daisy.

She knots it at the back of his head, touches it like she's checking it's secure, and then she takes him by the elbow. Coulson's whole body is hyper-aware of her, the sound of her boots on the gravel, her breathing, her fingers light on his arm.

“Come on,” she says, “I've got my own SUV around the corner.”

“Mine is right there,” Phil offers, and there's a pause before she tightens her grip like she's telling him off.

“I'm not an idiot, Coulson. You think I don't know your car's got a tracker in it?”

Phil didn't know. It makes sense, he supposes. He's kind of off-track with this whole investigation, it makes sense to keep an eye on him, but- he didn’t know.

“You stopped in the alley and walked to the diner for a coffee,” Daisy says. “There'll be an electronic transaction confirming it, and a receipt in your pocket. You didn't see anything at all. Dead end.”

“Okay,” he agrees, feels them turn a corner, and Daisy pulls him to a halt, takes her hand off his arm. A car door opens.

“In you get,” she tells him, and helps him up, her touch solicitous. When she gets into the driver's seat, she flicks on the heat, turns the radio to a station playing classics. Coulson can smell her perfume again, something he associates with her hair. Her shampoo, maybe? He wonders if that means she's not wearing a wig. He wonders how he's known so intimately what Daisy smells like for so long.

 

They drive for twenty minutes, half an hour, and Daisy is silent for a long time. Coulson doesn't speak either, just listens to her breathing, the way she hums along with snippets of the songs. He could reach out and touch her - she hasn't handcuffed him, his hands are free - but he promised to be good, to play along, and he doesn't want to ruin it before they've begun. He tries to memorize the turns she takes, a right and then a left, a long stretch on the straight like they're on a freeway, maybe. Assesses the distance - half an hour, how far out does that get them - and is just starting to draw a mental map when Daisy clears her throat.

“I know what you're doing,” she says. “Come on, Coulson, you know you trained me better than that.”

He does know. She's covering her tracks, looping around until he's disoriented. Her base might be five minutes from where she got the jump on him.

“You got me,” he says ruefully, “I forgot-”

“That I'm an agent? Or I was, at least. And I knew how to hide way before I ever joined SHIELD.”

“You could have just iced me,” he offers. “Taken me there unconscious. Better cover.” There's a silence at that, and he imagines her chewing her lip, before there's a fleeting touch on the inside of his wrist.

“I guess so,” she agrees. “Nicer to have company on the drive, and icers give you the worst hangover. Plus you’re really heavy, and the sedative duration is unpredictable. Easier this way.”

“Yeah,” Coulson says, soft. “Easier.” The silk is soft on his eyes.

 

They pull in somewhere, eventually, and he hears Daisy lower her window, type on a keypad. A rumble of doors opening and closing, and then the car comes to a halt. Daisy gets out first. Coulson waits, and then the passenger door opens, and Daisy leans over him, unbuckles his seatbelt. She’s so close he can feel her warmth, and it’s so- it’s _intimate_ , terribly so, with the blindfold and all his other senses on high alert.

“Come on,” she says, easily, like it’s not affecting her the same way, and he stumbles a little as he lets her lead him into wherever they’re going. Doors again, the muffled buzz of voices in another room, and then silence, except for the hum of computers. She pushes him backward until the backs of his knees hit something. A chair, and he sits down, heavy and clumsy.

“Can I-” he asks, and touches the scarf over his eyes. Daisy grabs him by both wrists, stilling the movement.

“No,” she tells him, “no, that stays on.”

“I don’t- please, can’t I see you?”

“You said you just wanted to talk, Phil,” Daisy says, and it’s gentle but there’s steel inside it. It’s the same tone of voice she’d used when she told him she was leaving. _Don’t try and stop me. I’m no good here. I have to go, Coulson, you know that_.

He does. He knows that. He just wants to talk. He just- god, he _wants_. Wants to see Daisy’s face when she’s not wearing a disguise. Wants to watch her expressions.

“Okay,” he breathes instead, “okay, you’re right, let’s just- let’s talk,” and Daisy lets his hands go. He hears another chair scrape across the floor, like she’s pulling it close. He reaches out, can’t help it, and his fingertips brush her thigh. Soft denim, worn a little through, the threads fuzzy against his fingertip, and then the heat of her skin through the hole in the knee of her jeans.

“Watch it, Phil,” Daisy says, “don’t make me tie you to the chair,” but she’s smiling - he can hear her smiling - and the jolt of arousal that goes through him is more shocking than the feeling of her bare skin under his hand. She could, he’d let her, he’d- _god_ , he’d let her, but he’s here to talk.

“Where are we?” Coulson asks, trying to control himself. “I mean- not where on a map, but- you have a _base_?”

“What, did you think I was living in a van?” Daisy asks lightly, and Coulson smiles, because, _maybe._  There’s a pause - Daisy tucking her hair behind her ears, he thinks - and then she laughs a little. “You think Providence and the Playground were the only secret bases Fury set up?”

“I- no. I guess not.”

“Yeah. Steve says hi, by the way. He saw you with Talbot on tv a couple months back. You know, I think he’s a little miffed you never told him you weren’t dead, Phil. Too many people doing that in his life.”

“So now you’re hanging out with the _Avengers_?”

“The Secret Avengers. Kind of a nice symmetry, don’t you think? Secret Avengers and Secret Warriors?”

“Yeah,” Coulson agrees, “you’re basically Captain America.”

“Please,” Daisy says, “I’m way cooler than Captain America,” and Coulson smiles, because it’s familiar, it’s so _fucking familiar_ , he misses her so much.

“You are,” he allows, “you are, even when you’re in goth mesh and eyeliner.”

“You didn’t like it?” Daisy asks. “I thought you’d like it. I knew you were watching. Picked out the eyeliner just for you. You’re not as subtle as you think you are, Coulson, the binoculars were obvious.”

“It was Robin, right?” Coulson says, ignoring everything else. He _did_ like the eyeliner, it’s true. Reminded him of being a teenager, the bands he’d listened to. There’s never been a time when Daisy hasn’t looked good, no matter what disguise she’s in.

“Of course it was Robin,” Daisy says. “Charles asked me to protect her. Keep her safe. You think I’d forget that promise? I’m keeping all my people safe, Coulson, I’m not just-” She goes silent for a minute, makes an impatient noise in the back of her throat. “I’m not just running away,” she whispers, softer. “This isn’t about me.” Coulson can’t help it, leans forward, reaches up tentatively to touch her face. His fingers hit her jaw, and he slides his palm up, cups her cheek. Just for a second, she leans into his hand, and then she takes his wrist again, pulls it away.

 

“I miss you,” he admits, and hears Daisy take a breath.

“I know,” she says, “I know you do, I knew it’d be- I miss everyone. _Mack_ , god, I miss him so much. I saw him, when you were watching me. He’s your partner now?” Coulson doesn’t miss the emphasis on _your_ , the almost-jealousy Daisy puts into her words.

“He is,” he says, “he’s trying to keep me on the level. Making sure I eat. I think he thinks I’m coming apart.”

“Are you?” Daisy asks, and gets up. Phil hears the noise of a coffee pot being filled.

“Maybe,” he says. “Maybe. I don’t know. I-”

“You have to stop looking for me,” Daisy tells him like it’s obvious. “Of course Mack’s worried about you. It’s a wild goose chase. You know you won’t be able to find me.”

“You found me,” Coulson points out, and Daisy laughs softly.

“Yeah,” she says, fond, like he’s an idiot. “I was watching you right back. And I’m _very_ smart, Phil.”

She is. Of course she is. She’s always been three steps ahead of him, in every way that matters. It’s so hard having this conversation without seeing her face; he hadn’t realized how much of talking to Daisy was reading her expressions, the set of her jaw, the way she bit her lip and blinked and looked up at him. _You wear your heart on your face_ , he’d said to her, and it’s true, it’s still true, but her heart’s hidden to him, and god, he just, he misses her so much it’s painful.

“You’re not hiding,” he argues, “not when… I mean, you’re all over the papers, Daisy. I thought you were on the run.”

“No,” she sighs, “I’m not hiding. But I’m not staying visible, either. You know the Accords made that impossible for me.”

“Then what are you doing?”

“I’m protecting my people,” Daisy says again, like it’s obvious. “Gathering them in.”

“Like Jiaying,” Coulson says; it slips out before he can help it, and he bites his lip, wishes he could take it back. Daisy just hums thoughtfully.

“I’m not attacking anyone who doesn’t deserve it,” she says, sounding tired but not ashamed, not angry like she had been. “But my mother wasn’t so wrong. I thought I could work in the system, Phil, I thought I could work within SHIELD. Build the Secret Warriors side-by-side, make them SHIELD agents as well as Inhuman. Maybe we could still do that, someday. But not right now. Not the way things are. Not with who the _Director_ is.”

“You know I didn’t give it up by choice,” Coulson tells her, and hears Daisy step closer to him again. She touches his shoulder, unexpected.

“You know I didn’t give SHIELD up by choice, either,” she replies, and he does, he knows. He’d pretended it was because of grief or trauma, even though he’d known Daisy would never leave just for herself, that it’d take more than her own grief for her to feel like she was allowed to walk away.

He’d wondered, blackly, every wakeful three am, if it was because of _him_. It wasn’t. This feels clean.

“You do work well in the system,” he offers, feeling like it’s inadequate, “you were… do you think you’ll ever come back?”

“Perhaps,” Daisy allows. “Perhaps someday. Yo-Yo tells me I think too much like a tool of the system, you know. She’s teaching me guerilla tactics.”

“God help us all,” Coulson jokes, and Daisy laughs quietly. Coulson can smell coffee; the machine’s finished brewing. Daisy squeezes his shoulder, steps away to pour it, comes back.

“No milk, sorry,” she says, puts the mug into his hands, but when he sips, the coffee is good. Strong and rich. “You know,” she murmurs, and he imagines her sitting down, looking at the mug in her hands, a thoughtful expression on her face, “you don’t remember this, you were- you remember when Raina kidnapped you?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I remember that.”

“Well, May told you, right, that she got me off the plane? That she supported Agent Hand’s assessment that I wasn’t necessary?”

“It wasn’t… she didn’t mean it that way, you know that,” Coulson says, and Daisy makes a dismissive noise.

“No, I _know_ , it’s just. May told me, then. She _told_ me. There are times I work better outside the system. When _you’re_ the system, Phil, when you’re in charge, when you let me work the way I work, that’s a system I can be a part of. When it’s someone else - when it’s the ATCU, Rosalind Price, General Talbot - when it’s not _you_ , May was right. So that’s. That’s the line. That’s when I’d come back.”

“For me,” Coulson says. “You’d come back for me.”

“For your system,” Daisy specifies, and then pauses. “Yeah, okay. For you.”

There’s nothing Coulson can say to that. He drinks his coffee instead, swallows hard. Thinks about Daisy’s voice, the soft way she’d said it. Almost a kiss, even though the meaning was _I can’t come back, not now, maybe never_.

 

When he’s finished his coffee, Daisy takes the empty mug from him, makes a quiet noise.

“It’s been a couple of hours,” she says, “I should get you back. You need to report in.” It’s true; he does, and he wonders how Daisy knows.

“You’re keeping tabs on me,” he accuses her, carefully light, and again, he hears Daisy smile.

“Yeah, you got me,” she says. “What can I say, I like to know what’s going on in the system.”

“Joey,” he guesses. “That’s why he didn’t come with-”

“I’m trusting you with that one, Phil,” Daisy tells him, sincere and urgent. “You want me to stay safe out here, don’t tug on that thread.”

“Thank you,” he says, and means it. She’s been trusting him all day, even though he’s blindfolded. Could have used his icer on him in the alley. Could have left him stumbling around looking for her and never finding a thing. Could have disappeared, and watched him from a distance, breaking his own heart over and over again as he looked for her without a break or any clues she wasn’t leaving, deliberate, for him to find.

She stands up, her chair scraping back across the floor, and then he feels her step closer, her knee brushing up against his. Her fingers are light on his face, but again, it’s intimate, shockingly so, when he can’t see her expression, when he doesn’t know what to expect.

“You should take better care of yourself,” she says, gentle, traces the stubble on his jaw. “If Mack’s worried, and you… Joey tells me you’re not sleeping so well. You’re getting thin, Coulson. Missing me that much?”

“I miss you so much,” he whispers, “Skye, god, I miss you so much,” and then he realizes his slip at the same time she does, judging from her indrawn breath. She doesn’t pull her hand away, though, just stands touching his face for another moment, and then steps in even closer, leans down, brushes her lips to his cheek.

“Daisy,” he breathes, “ _god_ , Daisy,” and then her lips are on his other cheek, feather-light, and Coulson swallows hard, holds himself still, feels her trail kisses down his jaw.

“Coulson,” she whispers, and then her mouth is on his, and it’s a kiss that feels yearning, that has every bit of what Daisy’s been feeling for the last four months, a kiss that says she’s been missing him absolutely as much as he’s been missing her. He parts his lips, lets her lick into his mouth, and he hears himself moan, a little, quiet and wounded.

“Oh,” he says, “Daisy, god, I,” lifts his hands to touch her and then holds back. “ _Please_.”

“Yeah,” Daisy agrees, “yeah, okay, yeah,” and she’s settling into his lap, her hand still cupping his face, the other sliding up to the nape of his neck so she can pull him up for another kiss. This time it’s harder; this time Coulson gasps into it, clings to her, traces out her back, her hips, the line of her spine. He stops when he reaches bare skin, wants to touch her hair.

“Can I…” he asks, and Daisy bites at his lower lip, drags her mouth down his throat, kisses like she wants to bruise him and can’t.

“Okay,” she says. “Just for a minute.”

Her hair, when he slides his fingers into it, is shorter than before. Not shoulder-length but cropped short, something he thinks might look Audrey Hepburn-ish, all delicate curls framing Daisy’s face. Easy to hide under a wig, and easy to look after on the run. It’s probably so beautiful it hurts.

“You know more than you should,” Daisy whispers into the curve of his neck. “I’m going to have to wear different disguises now, Phil.”

“You should change your perfume,” he tells her, because he recognizes it, and it’s a tell, surely. She laughs, guides his mouth back to hers.

“I don’t think there are many people who know what my perfume smells like,” she says, easy. “Talbot doesn’t, for sure. I didn’t know _you_ did.”

“I remember everything,” he admits, “there’s nothing about you I’d forget.”

“Except my name,” she teases, and he feels himself blush. “It’s okay,” she says, pulls back, touches his chin again. “It’s fine. I know you think of me as her. I can be whoever you need me to be, Phil.”

“I just _need_ you,” he confesses, and she sighs.

“I know,” she says. “I know. My people need me more.”

They do. They always will. He’s okay with that, in the end. She wouldn’t- Daisy wouldn’t be who she is, if she’d give that up.

 

When she drives him back, they’re both silent, like maybe they can’t say anything without saying everything. They’re compromised, both of them, and they know it, and it’s unbearable. Coulson’s still in the dark.

She helps him out of the car, and walks him back into the alley. Unties the scarf, and then pauses.

“The receipt,” she says, “for the coffee. I almost forgot. Don’t look just yet, Phil.” He doesn’t, keeps his eyes closed, feels her pull out his wallet and then put it back into his back pocket.

“And the icer,” he says, hears her chuckle.

“Can’t keep that, huh,” she jokes, reaches into his jacket so she can re-holster it. She’s standing in front of him; he can feel the proximity of her body, her breath warm on his throat. She touches his shoulder like maybe she wants to hug him. He could open his eyes. It would be so easy. Her face is all he’s ever wanted to see.

He doesn’t. Just waits. She drops her hand, tucks her fingers into his and squeezes once.

“Stop looking for me,” she tells him, “I’ll find you, okay?” and then she’s gone, the noise of her boots on gravel. He waits a few more seconds before he blinks his eyes open, and the light after so long in the dark is blinding.

 

“You didn’t see _anything_ ,” Talbot asks again when they’re debriefing, and Coulson shakes his head.

“Sat in the diner, drank a cup of coffee. Surveillance as usual. Didn’t see a thing.” It’s so easy he doesn’t even have to lie about it. “I think it’s a wild goose chase,” he adds. “We haven’t had any new leads in weeks. Perhaps you should pull me off the case after all.”

“A change of heart,” Talbot says, and Coulson shrugs.

“It’s a waste of time,” he says. “We’re chasing a ghost.”

Mack’s gaze is sharp, and Coulson only just meets it, but he’s had twenty years of practice at expressionless bland, and he hasn’t forgotten. He shrugs again, casual, like it doesn’t mean anything either way. It stings, underneath - his investigation _mattered_ \- but _stop looking_ , Daisy had said, and he’s going to listen.

It’s not until he’s in his room that night, taking off his jacket, that he feels the soft bulk again in his pocket. Remembers Daisy’s hands on him, reaching in under his jacket to put back his icer. It’s there, in the holster, but something else is in his jacket, something she’d palmed so easily he hadn’t even noticed.

When he pulls it out, it’s a scarf, fine silk under his fingers. Deep ink blue, scattered with white daisies, and when he presses it to his face, it still smells like Daisy’s perfume, like the heat of her skin. Like a promise, and he’s going to wait.


End file.
